Friday, July 20, 2012

In her email to the Boston Globe demanding a correction of its report on Romney's tenure at Bain from 1999-2002, Romney's communications director Gail Gitcho either confirmed that Romney perjured himself in his Massachusetts residency hearing in June 2002 or endorsed a false statement by Bain about that tenure.

The Romney campaign's 2011 statement that "Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way" does not contradict Romney's assertion, while striving to prove establish his Massachusetts for his gubernatorial run in 2002, that he returned to Massachusetts periodically during his Olympic tenure to attend board meetings for past and present Bain portfolio companies. Those companies are not "Bain Capital entities."
A Bain statement issued on July 12, however, does contradict that assertion: Romney, it says,“has had absolutely no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or with any of its portfolio companies since the day of his departure” in 1999" (my emphasis).

Gitcho's email to Globe cites the Bain statement:

As we provided to the Globe, while Mitt Romney continued to be listed on filings as the ownership of the firm changed hands, he was involved in no management or investment decisions during this period. This hasbeen [sic] detailed in disclosure forms which said: “Mr. Romney retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake Organizing Committee. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way.”

This has also been confirmed by Bain Capital which has stated: "Mitt Romney left Bain Capital in February 1999 to run the Olympics and has had absolutely no involvement with the management or investment activities of the firm or with any of its portfolio companies since the day of his departure. Due to the sudden nature of Mr. Romney's departure, he remained the sole stockholder for a time while formal ownership was being documented and transferred to the group of partners who took over management of the firm in 1999. Accordingly, Mr. Romney was reported in various capacities on SEC filings during this period."

Romney sat on the board of the LifeLike Co., a dollmaker that was a Bain portfolio company while Romney was in Utah, and in June 2002 he told the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission that he had remained active on that board, as well as on the board of Bain alum company Staples. The Bain statement says that he had no involvement with any Bain portfolio companies since the day of his departure in 1999, and the Romney campaign cites that statement as an authoritative source. The Romney campaign is therefore asserting that Romney lied to the Ballot Commission in 2002.